Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has broadcast excerpts of a videotape of Osama Bin Laden addressing the American people.

Here is a transcript of those excerpts broadcast by al-Jazeera:

Bin Laden spoke directly to camera

Oh American people, my talk to you is about the best way to avoid another Manhattan, about the war, its causes, and results.

Security is an important pillar of human life. Free people do not relinquish their security. This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have proud souls, like the souls of the 19 people [killed while perpetrating the 11 September 2001 attacks], may God have mercy on them.

We fought you because we are free and do not accept injustice. We want to restore freedom to our nation. Just as you waste our security, we will waste your security.

'Striking the towers'

I am amazed at you. Although almost four years have passed since the [11 September] incidents, Bush is still practising distortion and confusion.

He also continues to conceal from you the real reason [for the 11 September attacks]. Thus, the motives still exist for repeating what happened.

I will speak to you about the reasons behind these incidents. I will honestly tell you about the minutes in which the decision was made so that you will consider. I say to you that God knows that the idea of striking the towers never occurred to us.

Your security is in your own hands

But, after things had gone too far and we saw the injustice of the US-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I started thinking of that.

The events that influenced me directly trace back to 1982 and subsequent events when the United States gave permission to the Israelis to invade Lebanon, with the aid of the sixth US fleet.

At those difficult moments, many meanings that are hard to describe went on in my mind. However, these meanings produced an overwhelming feeling to reject injustice and generated a strong determination to punish the unjust ones.

While I was looking at those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust one in a similar manner by destroying towers in the United States so that it would feel some of what we felt and to be deterred from killing our children and women...

We did not find it difficult to deal with Bush and his administration, because it is similar to regimes in our countries, half of which are governed by the military and the other half of which are governed by the sons of kings and presidents; and we have a long experience with them.

In both categories, you find many who are characterised by hubris, arrogance, greed, and unlawful acquisition of money. This similarity transpired since Bush Senior's visit to the region.

'Election rigging'

While some of our people were dazzled by the United States and hoped that these visits would affect our countries, he, instead, was affected by these royal and military regimes, envying them for remaining in their posts for scores of years, embezzling public money without being held accountable or monitored.

Accordingly, he transferred dictatorship and the repression of freedoms to his son by introducing the Patriot Act under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Bush Senior deemed it appropriate to assign his sons to states. He also did not forget to convey the [election] rigging experience from the leaders of the [Arab] region to Florida to benefit from it at critical times...

We had agreed with the chief amir [leader - of the 11 September hijackers] Mohammed Atta that he should accomplish all the operations within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration could take notice.

It never occurred to us that the supreme commander of the US armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face those great horrors alone, at a time when they needed him badly.

This is because it seemed to him that being preoccupied with the little child's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than being preoccupied with the planes and their ramming into the skyscrapers.

This gave with three times the period required for carrying out the operations, praise be to God.

Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security.